Winnipeg police have identified the fourth victim of a Winnipeg serial killer.
At a press conference on Wednesday, police said the previously unnamed woman — who was being referred to as Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe, or Buffalo Woman — has been identified as Ashlee Christine Shingoose, 30.
During the investigation into convicted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki, police seized evidence in the form of a jacket that may have belonged to the victim, and sent it for DNA analysis.
The results came back and positively identified Shingoose, of St. Theresa Point Anisininew Nation, who had been last seen near a Winnipeg homeless shelter in 2022.
At Skibicki’s 2024 trial, court heard that the remains of the then-unidentified victim had not been located, but that he met her sometime in March 2022 outside a shelter and brought her back to his apartment before killing her.
Police said they believe Shingoose’s body was left in a garbage bin behind a Henderson Highway business — and that based on that location and the timing of her death, her remains were likely taken to the Brady Landfill the same month.
The remains of two other victims, Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, were found this month at a different landfill just outside of Winnipeg, after a search there began in December of last year.
In addition to Harris, Myran, and Buffalo Woman, Skibicki was also convicted of killing another Indigenous woman, Rebecca Contois.
Homicide investigators and police support resources travelled to St. Theresa Point Tuesday to inform Shingoose’s family and other members of the community.
Assembly of First Nations national chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said Wednesday morning that she had also spoken with Shingoose’s parents to offer her condolences.
Police said they’re in the early stages of discussions with the city and province about a humanitarian search of the Brady Landfill to find her remains.
With files from The Canadian Press